Method of forming stacks of wedge lifts



E. E. WINKLEY. METHOD OF FORMING STACKS 0F WEDGE LIFTS. APPLICATIONFILED JUNE 23, 1920.

1,416,085. Patented May 16, 1.922.

Wires stares r arsnrorrics.

ERASTUS E. WINKLEY, 0F LYNN, MASSACHUSETTS, 'ASSIGNOR TO UNITED SHOEMACHINERY CORPORATION, OF IPATER-SON, NEW JERSEY, A CORPORATION OF V NEWJERSEY.

M THOD or FORMING sTAcKsor WEDGE LIFTS.

7 Specification of Letters Patent. 'Pajbgntad pl 16 Original applicationfiled January 22, 1917, Serial No. 143,738. Patent No. 1,352,492, datedSeptember 14, 1920. Divided and. this application filed June 23, 1920.Serial No. 391,237.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, ERASTUS E. WINKLEY, a citizen of the United States,residing at Lynn, in the county of Essex and State of Massachusetts,have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Methods of FormingStacks of Wedge Lifts; and I do hereby declare the following to be afull, clear, and exact description of the invention, such as will enableothers skilled in the art to which it appertain's to make and use thesame.

This invention relates to methods of formingstacks of wedge lifts ofsheet material, and it has special reference to such lifts as are cutfrom a piece of stock, or are otherwise formed, or'operated upon, andthen delivered in face-to-face stacked relation, ready for transferralto other machines.

The invention, although not so restricted, is particularly applicable towedge-lifts such as are used in the manufacture of shoe-heels, and whichmay be out from transversely tapering strips and then arranged anddelivered in stacks, for the sake of compactness in storage, orconvenience in handling,

or in the subsequent feeding of the lifts by the feed mechanisms of.other' 'machines, such as automaticheel building machines.

Articles which are wedge shaped or tapering in form will not stackproperly toany material height when lying loosely one upon another andall in similar positions with respect to their tapers, or their thickand thin 5 ends. However, if they are arranged in alternate or reverse'relat1on-'that is, with their thick and thin ends alternating, they maybe stacked to any desired height and may be successfully fed one at atime from one end of the stack.

Such an arrangement or stack of wedge lifts is particularly importantwhen usedin connection with a magazine and feed mechanism of anautomatic heel building machine, 45 i such for instance, ascdisclosed inLetters Patent of the United States Nos. 1,352,745 and 1,352,746 grantedSeptember 14, 1920, to Fred V. Hart. In both of these structures, thelifts are stacked in alternate relation with respect to their tapers,although the lifts in the stack of the latter patent are so disposedthat their analogous faces are all directed the same way, while those ofthe former patentQhave the analogous faces of ad acent lifts in reverserelation or in contacting engagement.

One of the objects of the present inven- 5 tion is to devise a simpleand expeditious method of forming stacks of wedge lifts fromtransversely tapering strips of sheet material from which lifts aresuccessively cut and then progressively arranged in a chine having amagazine and feed mechanlsm of the type shown and described in saidpatent No. 1,352,746 hereinbefore re-. ferred to. e

These and other objects and features of the invention will becomeapparent from the following description of the invention in connectionwith the apparatus illustrated in the accompanying drawing, of which thesingle figure is a partially diagrammatic perspective" view of apparatusthrough; the

agency of which the present invention may be practiced with facility andrapidity. I

I Those skilled in the artwill, of course, understand that the method ofthe present invention is entirely independent of the apparatusillustrated,.which is shown merely as an .exemplificationfof one mannerin which the invention may be carried out conveniently. The. particularapparatus, chosen for illustrative purposes, is similar tot-hat shownand describedin detail in'applicants Letters Patent of the United StatesNo, 1,352,492- granted September 14,1920 of 'which the presentapplication is adivision.

Inasmuch as the apparatus illustrated forms 'no part of the presentinvention and, moreover, is set forth completely in the presentapplication to which reference has been made, only a briefgeneraldescription thereof w1ll be given herein. v

Wedge llfts utilized in building shoe-heels strips of sheet materialwhich areconvenare usually cut from transversely tapering and areconveniently made of sheet metal thickness in a plane extendingdiagonally through the lateral edges thereof. A strip thus formedgenerally has one face at right angles to the surface of its thicklateral edge and another longer face inclined thereto.

In carrying out the method of the present invention, as illustrated inthe accompanying drawing, such a transversely tapering strip S is fedstep-by-step by means of a. reciprocating feed dog 10 from a magazine12, containing a stack of similar strips, beneath a suitablereciprocating cutter 14. The cutter 14:, in this instance, is in theform of a knife which serves to out polygonal wedge lifts W of thedesired width successively from each strip as it is fed. It will benoted that a lift formed in this manner will have one face at rightangles to the surface of its thick edge and another face inclinedthereto, so that the latter face will be the longer ofthe two.

In building heels, it is desirable that wedge lifts be positioned withtheir longer faces directed toward the heel seat thereof and, therefore,it is necessary that the wedge lifts .be stacked in the magazine of theheel building machine in such manner that they may be successively fedand presented for assembly with other heel lifts in this position. Themethod of the present invention accomplishes this result in thefollowing manner.

Immediately after a lift N is cut from the strip S which rests upon itsshorter face, it is fed laterally in the direction'of its thin end intoone of a plurality ofstirrup-like carriers 16 by means of a suitablereciprocating pusher 18 that engages the thick end of the lift.

The carriers 16 are of like construction bent into the proper shape. Thehorizontal bottom plate 20 of each carrier lies in the plane of the cutlift so that the lift may be easily pushed into the carrier where itrests upon the bottom plate thereof. The carriers 16 are suspended fromthe respective ends of a horizontal supporting arm 22, one carrier beingpivotally mounted thereon while the other is fixed thereto. Intermediateits ends the supporting arm 22 is carried by and secured to a verticalshaft 24; that is rotatably mounted in a sleeve a part of a supportingmeshes with a rack 34 which is adapted for reciprocatory movements toturn the shaft and therefore the carriers, first in one direction andthen in the other, through successive half-rotations in oppositedirections.

The pivotally mounted carrier 16 into which a lift is about to beloaded, as illustrated in the drawing, is provided with a inion 36 whichmeshes through an idler gear 38 with a pinion 40 which is fixedlysecured to the sleeve 26. Therefore, as the rack 34 rotates the shaft24, supporting arm 22 and associated carriers 16 through a half-rotationto transfer the lift in its own plane to a position adjacent thereceiver 30, the pinions 36 and 40, together with the idler gear 38serve to impart a corresponding half-rotation to the pivotally mountedcarrier 16 and to the lift being transferred thereby. Thus, thetransferred lift in the pivotally mounted carrier 16 occupies a positionsimilar to that which it occupied before the transferral was effected.

' 0n the other hand, any lift which is loaded into the carrier 16 whichis fixed to the supporting arm 22 is rotated through a half-turn in itsown plane during the transfer movement, so that such lift is reversed inposition withrespect to its taper or its thick and thin ends.

As the lifts are successively transferred by the carriers 16, everyalternate lift being reversed end-for-end, the lifts are removed fromthe carriers and swung upwardly into the receiver 30 by means of anoscillatory lifter arm &2 which is fixed to a periodically operatedrockshaft 4ft and which swings upwardly through recesses 46 inthe bottomplates 20 of the carriers in such manner as to raise the lifts intovertical position in the receiver 30 where they are progressivelystacked and retained by means of resilient detents 4:8and 50.

It will be apparent that through the oper ation of the mechanismdescribed, the wedge lifts W which are successively cut from thetapering strips S are progressively transferred and delivered to thereceiver 30 in stacked relation in such manner that the lifts arereversed in position with respect to their tapers or thick 'and thinends, while their analogous faces are all directed in the same way t-hatis, all of the longer faces will point in one direction and all of theshorter faces in the other. The lifts so stacked may then be removedfrom the receiver, still in stacked relation, and convenientlyintroduced into a magazine of a feed mechanism of a heel buildingmachine or any other machine adapted to operate upon the successivelifts.

In certain aspects of the present invention, the steps of feeding thetapering strips and cutting lifts therefrom successively may be omitted,and a series of lifts that may have been previously cut, or otherwiseformed, or operated upon, may be fed all in similar positions into thecarriers and subsequently transferred and delivered in stacked relationin the manner set forth. Furthermore, although for illustrativepurposes, the present method has been described in connection with wedgeshaped polygonal heel lifts, it should be understood that the inventionis not in any way restricted to the handling of such blanks, but isgenerally applicable to any character of wedge shaped articles or blanksof sheet material.

The nature of the invention having been set forth, that which is claimedas new is:

l. The method of forming a stack of wedge articles which includesfeeding a succession of wedge articles in similar positions,successively transferring said wedge articles to another position andturning the alternate articles end-for-end in substantially their ownplanes during the transferral, and stacking the transferred articleswith their thick and thin ends alternating.

2. The method of forming a stack of wedge articles which includesfeeding a succession of wedge articles in similar positions, andstacking said articles in face-toface relation with their thick and thinends alternating and their analogous faces directed the same way. g

3. The method of forming a stack of wedge articles which includesfeeding a succession of wedge articles in similar positions, reversingthe position of every alternate article with respect to its taper, andstacking said articles with their thick and thin ends alternating andtheir analogous faces directed the same way.

4. The method of forming a stack ofwedge articles from a transverselytapering strip of sheet material which includes cutting wedge articlessuccessively from the strip, and progressively stacking said articles asthey are cut in face-to-face relation withtheir thick and thin endsalternating. 5. The method of forming a stack of wedge articles from atransversely tapering strip of sheet material which includesintermittently and longitudinally advancing the strip, successivelycutting wedge articles therefrom, and progressively manipulating saidarticles to bring them into stacked relation with their thick and thinends alternating. 6.-The method of forming astack of wedge articles froma transversely tapering strip of sheet material which includes cuttinstri p, and progressively stacking said articles as they are cut inface-to-face relation with their thick and thin ends alternating andtheir analogous faces directed the same way.

wedge articles successively from the 7 The method of forming a stack ofwedge articles which includes feeding a succession of said articles insimilar positions, turning the alternate articles end for end whilestill maintaining the analogous faces of all the articles pointing inthe. same direction, and stacking the articles with the analogous facesall pointing toward one end of the stack.

8. The method of forming a stack of wedge articles the two faces ofwhich differ from each other in certain characteristics, which lncludesfeeding a succession of said.

articles with their thick ends all directed one way, reversing thedirection of said thick ends on alternate articles of said succession ofarticles, and then stacking said ERASTUS E. WINKLEY.

